A Hero's Continuance
by ASadisticWhim
Summary: Post KH2: Short Drabble. What must it feel like to no longer have to fight?


Disclaimer: I own nothing that has anything to do with Kingdom Hearts or Square Enix or any video game developers or Disney. The  
characters are not mine, I'm just borrowing them for a little while so I can walk my plot-bunny.

A Hero's Continuance

Sora was on his feet, Keyblade in hand, before he was fully conscious of his actions. Blade held before him in defense, his eyes searched frantically for the threat he was sure was there, the threat that had always been there before. Staring at the baby blue walls of his bedroom, he sighed and vanished the weapon. He would have laughed, embarrassed, if there had been anyone there to see him: sweat-soaked and half-panicked. But he was alone.

Scratching the back of his head, he sat on the edge of the bed that was now almost too small for him. His feet would soon dangle over the footboard. It had been a brand new bed before the entrance of the darkness, the mattress not even broken in.

Sora scanned the darker corners of the room more from habit than true worry. The mobile that had hung on the ceiling above his bed lay in a broken clutter on his desk, one of the first victims of Sora's nightly habits. Many of his clothes that no longer fit were bundled up in garbage bags by the door, ready for donation. Everything else was neatly tucked away: schoolbooks stacked by subject on his shelf, toys stored in bins under the bed, clothing folded into drawers, carpet newly vacuumed.

Earlier, his mother had opened the door, blinked at the clean room, and then told him dinner was ready.

She had done nearly the same thing when, soaking wet and sandy from his return at the beach, Sora had knocked on the front door. He had tried to go in first, but found the door locked. The door had never been locked before, and he didn't remember ever owning a key. After the fourth knock, he heard the lock slide back, the rattle of the doorknob.

"I'm home," Sora had said with a small smile and shrug. On the other side of the doorway, his mother looked a little older than he remembered: new wrinkles traced into her face, hair longer than it had been. She had stared at him, blinked, and then pulled him into a hug with strength he didn't know she possessed. In the hug, Sora had wondered when he had grown so much taller than his mother that she had to pull him down to hug him.

"Welcome home," she had said with the smile he remembered from childhood. The one she would give him when she took care of him when he was sick. It made him feel warm and safe, and that everything was going to be okay.

They hadn't spoken about the time he was gone. She didn't ask, and he didn't offer. Many of her reactions pointed to denial that he was gone, and he would have been worried. Except the other people in town had reacted the same way: blinked and said hello as if he were never gone. Even Selphie, Wakka, and Tidus had done nothing more than blink before including him back into their latest antics.

It had been everything he had wanted: to return to the islands and continue as everything was before. To play with his friends, whine to his mother, go to school and avoid homework. He couldn't count how many nights he had spent with Donald and Goofy telling them everything he planned to do when he got home. And now he was doing all of it. He was learning to surf from Wakka, sparring with Riku, watching sunsets with Kairi. He was laughing, joking, living. It was all he ever wanted.

So he couldn't figure out why it felt like something was missing.

It was sometime past three in the morning when he docked the boat on their island. He wasn't surprised to find Riku's already there. Late night visits weren't unusual. For some reason, there was a sense of peace in returning to the spot where the darkness had both began and ended on their little island. Kairi said that it was a reminder of the journey's end when the memories weren't strong enough reassurance. She was probably right.

Looking at the two boats docked side by side, Sora wondered if Kairi would show up tonight. A string of fate held them bound, and while Riku and Sora were pulled to the spot by nightmares, Kairi was pulled by Riku and Sora.

Peeling off his sandals, he threw them into his boat and walked barefoot along the beach. Looking around the island, he remembered when he had thought it was as big as a castle and riddled with mystery. Older now, every nook and cranny explored and some now too small to be reached, he was amazed at how little it really was. Running from one end to the other used to feel infinitely long, stuff endurance races were made of. Now it was a few minutes walk.

How long? He wondered as he walked along the beach, hands behind his head. How many years had passed between one side of the darkness to the other? He and Riku had figured it had been at least three years. Four at the most. Sora didn't even know for sure how old he was and could only guess; same for Riku.

Kairi had laughed at them at first, telling them they were only gone two years. They couldn't blame her; she didn't know. She hadn't spent months traveling from world to world, months trapped in darkness, months trapped in stasis. They had no way of knowing that time ran the same on all the worlds, if it ran the same in places that weren't supposed to exist.

Sora spotted Riku sitting on the beach a few feet ahead. He didn't call out, as he would have in the daytime when the sounds of the others covered his approach. It was nighttime, the loudest sounds the waves in their cycle of forward and back. Riku had probably already heard him coming.

"Another one?" Riku said as he sat in the sand beside him. Sora noticed the water wasn't too far from washing over their feet and wondered how long Riku had been there alone.

Sora looked down, chuckled and replied: "Yeah. What can you do?"

Riku smirked. "Nothing, really." Riku's gaze was locked on the horizon, just as it always had been when they were younger. Sora sometimes wondered why he didn't look up at the sky where they both knew the other worlds were, but never asked. He chalked it up to Riku being Riku and some things never changing. Like the gang at the beach, his mother's nagging, and summer vacation.

Sora lay back on the sand, pillowed his head in his hands and stared at the stars. There were many worlds out there. Looking at the thousands of blinking lights, he wondered where in the sky the worlds he knew were, wondered if the friends he made were looking up in their skies and thinking of him. He wondered where Donald and Goofy were. Were they in King Mickey's Castle, or were they still traveling the worlds even though he was home?

Sora felt the restlessness rise in his stomach: the ache to be out there, fighting, doing something. It was a feeling instilled in him from years of being on the run, of always moving and leaving at the notice of a second. He pulled his right hand from beneath his head and held it up against the backdrop of the sky. The tips of his fingers tingled, the power of the Keyblade still at his command. It would be in his grasp in less than a second if he as much as thought of summoning it to him. Fisting his hand, he dropped it sideways into the sand. The tingle slowly ebbed away.

"Miss it?" Riku ask. It was the question that had never before been spoken between them.

Sora didn't have to ask what his friend was referring to. "Yeah," he said, still looking at the stars. He didn't miss the terror of being attacked in his sleep or the killing. He didn't really miss the fighting. He missed the adventure, exploring new worlds, meeting new people. He missed discovering the wonders that were out there. His subconscious didn't seem to be ready to give all of it up: the constant movement, the excitement.

"You?" Sora asked, even though he didn't really need to. He knew Riku felt the restlessness just like he did. Or else they wouldn't be sitting next to each other on the beach.

Riku shrugged. "Some of it." Riku didn't miss the darkness, Sora knew. The memory of the darkness plagued his friend just as so many memories plagued Sora. But even as Sora wasn't sure which parts Riku missed, he knew the restlessness was there.

Looking up at the stars, the feeling of needing to be somewhere else roiling in his stomach, Sora wished he had never seen how small their island truly was.


End file.
